EXHIBITION 1997

"If I ruled the world"
from 1997-07-04 to 1997-08-17

opening date: 1997-07-04

Political Messages of Pop Music and its Images

The political element of pop music is not restricted to its actors, explicitly political acts and statements. So the project pays attention not only to the single persons, bands and labels, which are connected with political movements and disseminate social issues or test a non-hegemonical practise of work. It will track the political intentions and impacts of the sort of pop music, which is not aware of its political implications. In that sense, the discussion will also include phenomena, which are normally not part of the subculture. Particular forms of discipline and controll will be analyzed. Binaries like youth/adults, high/low, proletariat/bourgeoisie or women/men will be seen as problematic. Hierarchies and sterotypes should be destabilized. The participation and the construction of communication structures, which seem very important for the creation of processual identities in temporary communities, will be analyzed.

Conventional studies in the context of pop and politics put the main emphasis on the texts of authors, the verbal remarks of the fans or the proclamations of the music industry. Compared with that "If I ruled the world" has a special intrest on the image politics of pop music: the outfit of the bands, their image strategies, the layout of magazines and labels or the appearance of clubs and discos. The project takes up events of the Shedhalle, which have made a critique of representation now in the realms of technology, gender studies and urbanism. A recording studio on the vasis of the cubase programme gives the possibility to experiment with different forms of electronic pop music. A video editing equipment makes the production of music clips much easier. Thus practice (production= and a critique of representation can be combined.

artists: Jochen Becker, Blau (Gaby Frank, Sarah Korht, Doris Maasen, Annette Weber), Pauline Boudry, Jesko Fezer, Bernadette Hengst, Urs Hiestand, Stewart Home, Schorsch Kamerun, David Lamelas, Pia Lanzinger, Katrin Lock , Alex Murray-Leslie, Martin Pesch, Adrian Piper, Stephan Ramming, Rocko Scha moni, Cornelia Schmidt-Bleek, Ina Wudtke, Suzanne Zahnd